“I would swear not even to reveal your location to Tyr himself, unless it was a matter of life and death for you, Rig, or the entire world.” Sigrun’s voice was flat. “Would you know what happened, Frittigil? You have the right to know. But it goes no further than you, and Rig, when he is old enough to hear of it.”
“And when will that be?” Fritti asked, with a hint of defiance.
Sigrun shrugged. She felt oddly cold, in spite of the warmth of the Judean spring evening around her. “You are his mother. That will be your decision.” She looked away, and began the long and wearisome explanation. And watched as Fritti’s expression went from the anger and hatred born of betrayal into pity and horror, and finally tears of honest, real grief, when Sigrun relayed what Loki had intended to be his last words, though even that dignity had been robbed from him by Reginleif’s final attack. “He said to tell you that he would never use the boy as an avatar, not even if it were his only way to return from the Veil.” Sigrun swallowed. “He said that all he had ever wished for, was freedom, to enjoy this rich and beautiful world. And that he gave freedom to you and to Rig. Freedom from the schemes of the other gods. He said to tell you that it was not all a lie, and that you have the love of a god. Perhaps not the one you would have chosen. But that you have it, nonetheless.”
Fritti’s face crumbled, and she curled in on herself as she wept, not really for Loki, Sigrun knew, though that was surely part of it, but for Radulfr, the aspect of himself he’d shared with her, as he’d trained her. Known her. Loved her. The noble bear-warrior, upright and honorable, the part Loki never could play in any of the sagas of their people, because he was a seiðmann, a wizard, a trickster. “I only saw his real face once,” Fritti said, her voice shaking. “And I was so angry at him for so long, that I don’t know if I can even . . . picture what he looked like.” She raised her face, and her tears were filled with the light of her luminous, star-shine eyes. “Do . . . do you think he’s alive?”
Sigrun looked away again. “I do not know,” she told Fritti, quietly. “Trennus says he will search the Veil, but the Veil is . . . as large as our universe is. He says, however, that because time is infinite in the Veil, he could, theoretically, search the whole of it.” Sigrun’s voice was dubious. She wasn’t sure even the gods could manage that.
“Theoretically. How long will that take?”
“That is the wrong question to ask about the Veil. There is no time in the Veil, except that which we make. Here? I do not know that answer, either.” Sigrun shrugged, and wished she had answers. “If Loki lives, I think it entirely possible that he will return. If he has the power. He loves this world. He loves the complexity of humanity. He loves you, because you are human and beautiful and compassionate and . . . I think because you saw something in him that others did not see. Believed in him, in a way that he has not been believed in, before. But I have no idea when or if that day will come. If you wish to hear of futures, ask of my sister.” But be careful, because her futures will damn you.
“Have you ever asked her for the future?” Fritti asked, with unexpected insight.
Sigrun closed her eyes. “I asked her, when she was ten, to tell me of her visions. Since then? No. And yet she assaults me with them at every turn.” Sigrun’s throat closed, and she struggled to keep the bitterness out of her tone. “Still, she is the last of my kin.” And the last, apparently, that I shall ever have. “I will do my duty by her.” She looked at Fritti, and deliberately made her tone brisk. “Now, you have decisions to make. You may stay here with us while you are deciding, and I will be happy to train Rig, if you choose to remain in Judea. However, my time here will be necessarily short. I am required in the north at the moment.”
. . . not because I command it, but because it is in your nature to do so . . . you cannot escape your own nature . . . . Freya’s words swirled in Sigrun’s mind. I have been told to assist my people. I have never disobeyed in my life, and disobeying just to disobey, when people’s lives are on the line, would be both petty and wrong. I cannot choose not to obey . . . but the gods will have no more of me, than what I can accomplish with my hands and my native skill. They will not have my heart, my soul, my self. They will have my duty, and nothing more.
Stubborn! Sophia laughed in her memory, and Sigrun’s throat closed once more. Perhaps. But am I stubborn, sister, because I always have been, or am I stubborn, because I have been made to be?
After dinner, Adam took the children out on the balcony and set up his telescope for the first time in months. Got Jupiter centered in the field of view, and delicately adjusted the lenses until the four moons large enough to be seen with a basic scope like this appeared, like tiny jewels, around the planet. “Everyone gets a look,” he told them, and lined them up by height. Rig was a new addition, and when . . . god help me . . . Loki’s son looked into the scope, he said, “There’s nothing there.”
“Ahh. I need to find it again.”
“Why does it go away?”
“Because the earth is turning, and in this case, we just turned a little too far away for the scope to be lined up with Jupiter anymore.” Adam eased the telescope back into position, re-acquired his target, and told Rig, “Go ahead.”
Somehow, it didn’t surprise him at all that the boy immediately conjured an illusion of what he saw. “It’s little, and it’s fuzzy,” Rig said, and lifted his head to look at his illusion, which matched that description perfectly. “What does it really look like?”
“We’ve got books in the house with pictures taken by the Jovian probes sent out about ten years ago. You’ll be amazed at how many moons it really has. I think the latest total is over fifty.”
Latirian’s eyes went wide. “How do they decide who’s the goddess for each one?”
“I don’t think there are any gods out there. There’s no one there to worship them.” Adam congratulated himself on sidestepping that one.
“Well, what about up on L’banah?” Linditus asked, excitedly. “Who gets to be god or goddess up there?”
“It’s a Judean-Hellene-Nipponese project,” Adam said, once again sidestepping the issue for all he was worth. “But there are people from all over the planet living up there now.”
“Yes, but that means it could be your god, Selene, Diana or . . . um . . . .” Latirian looked puzzled. Even in the low light from the interior of the house, the girl’s eyes glittered ruby, like banked coals. “Aunt Minori’s said his name before. It’s weird that the Nipponese have a sun goddess and a moon god. Tsooo . . . something. . . .”
“Tsukiyomi-no-mikoto,” Masako said, from behind Adam’s chair, where she was eating a lemon ice.
Latirian shook her head. “Yes. That one.” She let her legs swing from the chair. “Do they all share it?”
Adam looked up at the sky, and sighed. “This is way over my pay-grade,” he told them. “But I think that the gods have power wherever they’re loved and worshipped.”
“So someday, when we send people to Mars, and Jupiter’s moons, then the gods can go there, too?”
Adam adjusted the telescope. Technically, he was supposed to say that god was everywhere. And maybe it was true. He just wasn’t sure of definitions like that anymore. “Sure,” he told Latirian. “It might work that way. Who wants to look at Saturn’s rings?”
As he watched them look up at the stars, Adam found himself thinking back to his conversation with Sophia, who was staying the night with them, mostly because she said she didn’t see herself leaving before morning. “Look,” he’d told her, once he was sure they were out of Sigrun’s earshot. “I . . . appreciate your taking care of the kids for Tren and Asha.”
“I know her Name; you can say Lassair around me.” A sunny, cheerful smile.
Adam had paused and set his teeth. “And I know you’re only trying to help,” he went on, doggedly. “And ninety-nine times out of a hundred, I keep my mouth shut and let Sig deal with you, the way she lets me deal with my brother. In this case, though? I’m drawi
ng a line. You didn’t even let us get in the damned door of our own house before laying into Sig with prophecy. Again. Can’t you see that she’s just about out of hope as it is? Humans need hope in order to live. If we don’t have that, there’s no point in even trying. Stop trying to beat it out of her every time we see you.” He kept his voice level. Not shouting, not yelling. Just implacable. Sigrun sometimes referred to Sophia’s ‘voice of prophecy.’ Adam didn’t have that, but he did have, after more than twenty years in the military and Praetorians, a damned fine voice of command.
Sophia squinted. “Oh, but there isn’t any hope, Godslayer. You know that. Well, other than hoping for what comes after. This world will end. There’s no getting around that. The only hope I have, is the fact that I see Sigrun walking out of the ruins. Finding the Styx, the black road, and following it home. Where she’ll find us all. Even those of us who’ve died. And then the world will begin again.” She smiled. “Pretty, isn’t it?”
Adam wanted to swear, but Sophia clearly hadn’t had a single drop of liquor, let alone any of her pills. “You want to put a date on that?” he finally challenged her.
“Caesarius 32, 1999. Your wedding anniversary, I’m afraid, but it had to end on some day, didn’t it? No more or less auspicious than any other, for an ending.”
Adam ran a hand over his hair and flipped the long tail off of his neck in irritation. He’d listened to how Sophia conversed with Sigrun for years now. He’d long since found the pattern. When confronted with something that she didn’t want to deal with . . . Sophia would throw in a piece of extraneous information that the person confronting her wouldn’t like. It was pure distraction. And he wasn’t going to let it work. “Nice. I’ll make sure to lay in a stock of sparkling wine and caviar from the Caspian and Sig and I can sit in the atrium and watch the world burn.”
“Actually, she’ll be in Burgundoi, and you’ll be rather busy doing some fairly serious self-reflection.” For some reason, Sophia’s lips quirked at that.
“That’s enough.” Adam stared her down. It wasn’t the words. It was the smile. “Not one more word. No prophecy from now until you get on the plane in the morning. Give Sigrun a damned break.”
Sophia raised her hands, her eyes wide. “As you wish, Godslayer.”
And then he’d gone in the house, and found Sigrun, not unpacking suitcases, but very carefully going through the empty nursery. Packing things away. Face expressionless. Tucking away the quilt in a drawer, drawing the blinds shut, tossing dust covers over the armoire and chest of drawers and the rocking chair she’d inherited from her mother. “In truth, I should just move this all to the attic,” Sigrun had told him, as the first patter of rain hit the window hidden by the curtains.
That had hurt, actually. Sigrun wasn’t the only one who needed hope to live. He’d crossed the room and taken the dust-covers out of her hands, tossing them to the floor. “Sig. We’re alone now, we’re home, the children are all downstairs with Sophia and Fritti. Talk to me.”
Her face, until now rigidly controlled into blankness, crumpled a bit, and she’d put her head on her shoulder. “Adam . . . I love you.”
“And I love you, but I sense a but coming.”
“You heard what the gods have told me.” Her voice was muffled. “I . . . can’t have children. Nothing can be done about that.”
Adam stared at her, a frown settling onto his face. “And?”
“That doesn’t mean that you can’t.” She looked up, her expression desperately sad. “You’re . . . still young, Adam. And you . . .” Her lips quivered. “You deserve to have your dreams.”
A knife-edge of cold fear cut into his stomach. “Sig, what in god’s name are you talking about?”
She took a deep breath, and told him, simply, “I’ll fight fate, Adam, but my wyrd, my path . . . I accepted it when Loki told me why. I accept that my future is my sacrifice to try to avert what my sister insists is going to happen.” Her voice wavered. “My wyrd doesn’t have to be your wyrd.”
Panic, for an instant, a shard of it as intense as the first time he’d ever fought in a battle. And on the heels of that, anger. “What are you saying?” he snapped out, pulling his head back. “That I should divorce you? Go find someone who can have children, go . . . live on the moon? Is that what you want?” This time, his voice had actually risen to an incredulous shout.
She shook her head, infinitesimally. “No.”
“Then why in god’s name are you even talking about this?” He never lost his temper like this, but it was as if she were receding in front of him, disappearing into mist, and the years he’d planned to spend with her were disappearing with her. He wanted to clutch at that future, desperately, and hold on, before it was stolen from him, by . . . god only knew what. Sophia’s damnable prophecies. Loki. Freya. All the things that didn’t make a difference to him, but that tugged at her.
“Because you can still have all the things you want.”
“And why the fuck do you think you’re not included on the list?” Adam rarely cursed out loud, and her head snapped back. “I don’t just want children. If all I wanted were children, I’d have suggested adopting years ago. And it’s not like Tren and Lassair’s children don’t spend half their time in our house, anyway. I’ve always said that children are a message to the future. A lot of people are posting some pretty illiterate letters, admittedly, but I want to write that message with you. What I wanted was a life with you.” He shook her shoulders, very slightly, to make her look up. “You think that if I go to the moon and live there, I wouldn’t spend every single day, standing at a window, staring out at Earth, and wondering where you were? What you were doing? What I’d screwed up, so completely, that I somehow got myself banished, away from you?” The fear was still there, and frighteningly real.
“Every dream you have, dies because I’m in your life.” Her voice was dull. “I hold you back, Adam.”
“Don’t you ever say that again.” He was suddenly terrified and angry at the same time. Terrified of her leaving. Of her . . . punishing herself, and taking every spark of light out of his life at the same time. He sat down on a box beside her, and pulled her into his arms. “Don’t cut me out. I don’t know what you’re . . . punishing yourself for, Sig, but don’t punish me, too.” God, what is going on in that mind of yours, that I can’t see, and you won’t talk to me about?
He waited for her to nod in acquiescence before he went on, a little more quietly, “All right. So . . . maybe we can’t have children. Not unless the world happens to end around us. That doesn’t mean I don’t want to spend whatever time I have left right here, with you. At least as much of it as we can, anyway, given the mess up north. We’ll write our message to the future. And we’ll do it together, all right?” His fingers tightened on the back of her neck. Please don’t leave me, Sig. I’ve killed two gods, helped kill Hel, and been responsible for the banishment of a fourth. The blood of thirty million people is . . . probably at least a little on my hands. You leave, in this . . . misplaced guilt and anger of yours, and there’s going to be nothing left of me but the dark. “I’m not leaving, Sig. You’d have to throw me out, and I won’t let you do that.”
“Every choice I make, is somehow the wrong one.” She looked up, and he caught the motion out of the corner of his eye. “Except for you.”
Adam managed his first solid inhalation in five minutes, relief loosening the bands of anxiety around his midsection. “I think you’ve made other good decisions. But I top the list?” He managed a smile for her. “Outstanding.”
She’d calmed down after that. Some of the emptiness, the fragility, had gone out of her expression, and Adam had been deeply relieved. She’d found some kind of touchstone, and that . . . was a good thing.
An hour or so later, she tucked in Latirian, Rig, Inghean, Masako, and Solinus; the youngest children had all already gone to bed. But the eldest had all begged for a story from “Auntie Sig,” and Adam had never yet seen Sigrun turn down that kind of
request. “All right,” she told them, as he watched and listened from the hall, learning against the wall. “I will tell you the story of the valkyrie for whom I was named. Sigrún. Of course, she wasn’t always Sigrún. In her first life, she was named Svafa, and she was a valkyrie then, too.”
“First life?” Masako asked, her eyes wide. “She reincarnated, like Buddhists believe in?”
“So the story goes,” Sigrun agreed. “So, Svafa rode out one day with eight other valkyrie, and found a man, the son of a king, who was silent, and to whom no name could be given. He had been nameless since the day he was born, and, quite by accident, Svafa gave him the name of Helgi. She asked him if he would like a gift, to go with his name, and Helgi told her he would have no gift, if he could not have her. Svafa told him, instead, the location of a magic sword, one engraved with runes. And she rode to battle with him, and was always there to protect him from danger. He won respect and renown, and finally, her father, another king, allowed Helgi to claim her hand in marriage. But not long after their marriage, Helgi was challenged to a formal duel, which he could not decline, not without being declared nithing, dishonored. He took a mortal wound, and Svafa was called to the place of battle, where they exchanged a last kiss. And when she died, she was reborn as Sigrún, and Helgi was reborn, and named Helgi once more. And once more, they met, when she was out riding with eight of her sisters, and Helgi saw her, and loved her, and she loved him. Their souls knew each other, it was plain. But she was promised to another, and Helgi resolved that this would not stand. He led an army into her father’s lands, and killed all who would not pledge to him their allegiance.”
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